Too Late
by Girls In White Dresses
Summary: How fate always seems to have such perfect timing.


**First Edward x Rose fanfic ever :) Read and review please.**

* * *

><p>And then <em>she <em>came. That smiling, sugared girl with eyes so light, and so bright you could not see the lies hidden underneath. Rose regarded the mirror, her own violet eye staring back at her. She had told Al that Cain had been her boyfriend. What a lie. What a sick, foolish fantasy. Yes, she had loved Cain. Loved him more than anything. Yet he had loved that wretched girl until the day he left the world. Rose can't remember the girl's name anymore. She doesn't want to remember anything. But her mind keeps remembering Cain's tortured eyes, empty eyes that stared at her without recognition.

"Cain! Don't you remember me? I'm Rose!"

He didn't reply, his knuckles turning white as he gripped the knife.

"CAIN!"

She remembers her frantic voice filled to the brim with worry, calling his name, over and over again. And then-

Red.

Her eyes grew wide, and her heart felt such a burning, searing, pain.

_Why?_

She wasn't able to stop him. She had always been too weak, too powerless. Unable to do anything worthwhile.

He called out her name then, no… not "Rose."

He called out the name of the girl who had ripped up his heart so mercilessly. The girl that Rose hated with hatred so powerful you could never believe that a sweet girl named after a flower could ever feel.

Cain stared at her with eyes unseeing, whispering that ugly name with his final breath.

Rose drove her hand into the hard surface of the mirror, shattering it. Her own pale face peers back at her, still. He still haunts her in her dreams. The girl, too. They're both dead. In a way it's almost funny. Rose loved Cain, Cain loved no one but that girl. The girl loved no one, and died of illness. Cain killed himself. She had tried for so long to get him to notice her. Trying to catch his attention. In the end, it didn't matter. He would never love her. Rose couldn't speak a word after that; she lost her voice, that is, until Father Cornello emerged. He promised her he would bring back her one "true love." She had let herself believe in false hopes again. Was the feeling she felt for Cain even love? She just wanted to say

_I'm sorry._

Wanted to start over, and above all, wanted him to love her.

What a fool she had been.

Then comes her saviour, her knight with shining metal limbs. Golden hair, golden eyes. A heart as shattered as her own. Somehow, he had managed to put himself back together. A feat she could have never done herself. The words he spoke to her. His increasingly funny antics that made her laugh and smile so easily. She believed in hope, real hope, once more. Her golden saviour, his armoured little brother. This world certainly can't get any stranger.

He left her with a hardened resolve. This time, she would be strong. She would stand up and move forward.

Of course, fate had never any mercy towards her.

The rebellion of Lior started, and her life became chaotic. Nothing but destruction and the colour red. The moaning and crying of children and adults alike. People vomiting blood, buildings destroyed, eyes of killers becoming more and more frequent. Limp, broken bodies of children lying with open, glassy eyes. She felt burning pain once more, the hope gone.

So much red.

The town eventually recovered, but not her. This time, it had been too much. Her heart had been broken too many times that is was far beyond repair. Deep inside of herself, she supposed, it was her nature to be weak. When her shining saviour returned again, when she saw him for the second time, Rose was merely a husk of her former self. What had once been a laughing, vibrant girl-

She couldn't speak. Again.

How fate always had such perfect timing.

He came back just when she realized it, but just when she couldn't form the words, couldn't find the _voice_ to say

_I love you._

Her empty eyes stared without seeing, those golden eyes shot through with concern as he shook her, his beautiful voice calling,

"ROSE! Don't you remember me…?

"_I'm Edward..._"


End file.
